Link Securities | The Catalan blood products company has received a $21 million grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) for Parkinson’s Disease Research to identify plasma-based biomarkers that could indicate a person’s likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD) “many years before” clinical diagnosis.
The initiative, dubbed ‘Chronos PD’, could accelerate the discovery of new diagnostic tools, as well as the identification and development of novel therapies that modify the progression of the disease. PD affects nearly one million people in the US and more than six million worldwide. It occurs when brain cells that produce dopamine, a chemical that coordinates movement, stop working or die. Despite decades of research and advances in treatment, knowledge of the factors that drive the disease remains limited.
In other news, the Expansión newspaper reports today that Scranton Enterprises, a Dutch company through which the Grifols family controls part of its investments, managed to carry out a series of refinancing transactions in 2024 to extend the maturity of a total of €723 million of debt, through three separate transactions with Santander, Oaktree (Brookfield’s debt fund) and BBVA.
Scranton pledged all its class A shares in Grifols (7.4% of the capital) as collateral. Deria (another of the family’s assets) also pledged part of its shares, around 5% of GRF. Part of these shares had already been used as collateral in the previous loan.
